Great fun mum shit!

I am THAT mum that looks at other mums doing great fun shit with their kids, and then wants to be THAT mum, but today I was reminded why I don’t do ‘great fun mum shit!’

Smiley has been asking to ride her rollerskates further than the fringes of our estate for weeks and ‘E’ has been asking to ride her bike without her ‘tablerisers’ on, for equally the same time.

What with lockdown 3.0 and the fact I actually fucking caught COVID (which I may well write another blog about while I sit here with no smell or taste weeks after the initial infection and wake every morning with a phenomenal headache and stiffer than … my husbands ‘morning wood’! Covid is no joke!) The long and short of it is: even with all the time I have had, there just hasn’t been the time.

Wheels at the ready, today’s the day. I am all mumsy, snacked up and back-packed up. Owning #mumlife but not owning #doglife because before we have even left the estate, I have trod on the dogs about three times, they are not used to being on a lead so they spend most of their time tripping me up and circling my legs which either ends with me on my arse or them trod on and yelping, very loudly! Cavapoos are notorious wimps!

Smiley is just about managing to stay up on the newly tarmacked road and I am actually quite impressed. Its not graceful by any means and if it wasn’t for the skates, she kind of looks like she’s doing a REALLY … really really bad attempt of the ‘watch me Whip, watch me Nae Nae’ dance and just like that the song lyrics are embedded firmly into my in my head and I am now mum rapping to ‘Now watch me whip, Now watch me nae nae, Now watch me whip, whip, Watch me nae nae’ … and there are plenty of whips and high-pitched squeals from Smiley to keep me fully entertained.

Meanwhile ‘E’ has got off her bike, the bike she soooo wanted to ride which is still intact with ‘tablerisers’ and she is now walking next to it like it’s a little pony being led down and out of the estate. “It goes too fast downhill” she says looking quite deflated. I introduce her to this miraculous mechanism … called a brake! She gets back on, multi coloured helmet, with her name wrote in a black sharpie across the back, mustard suede biker jacket, black and white striped summer dress, unicorn leggings, Santa socks and black paignton school shoes. Yep. She looks like someone has thrown her up. After a collision with a wall, she continues to walk her bike like a fucking pony.

Smileys on a roll, literally, yelling “watch me, watch me,” to which I immediately yell back with “Do the stanky leg (stank) Do the stanky leg (stank stank), I laugh at myself and my immaturity, she turns and glares a medusa style stare at me and promptly lands impressively hard on her arse. I can’t help but laugh and carry on with my song “Now, break your legs (break em) Break your legs (break em), doing my ‘coolest mum rapper’ impression. She cries and I feel instantly bad so I do what I hope every mother does and uses sugary bribes as my leverage to keep her moving in the right direction.

Fuelled with sugar, they both appear to have sped up a little… until the hill of doom. ‘E’ is off the bike refusing to go any further without me pushing her, Smiley is in full bafta mode.

Dragging one child behind me, whilst pushing one in front of me we begin the climb…

The dogs are shaking in fear of their lives being abruptly ended by rollerskates or the pony-bike, both of which are being propelled forward in short bursts of high speed with every push and pull I give. But… it appears my frustration gets the better of me and I push a little too hard and in completely the wrong place. When I say wrong place, I mean, I literally pushed the poor child full pelt, Marvel super hero style, off her bike. She flew. Took off almost. If it wasn’t such a pathetic accident it would be labelled as abuse. She wails, holding her elbow for dramatic effect “I hate my bike so much, this is the worsest day ever”

Not sure we will do that again. My ‘great fun mum shit’ ended with me familarising the defeated duo to ‘Silento’, and dancing in the kitchen to ‘Watch me (whip / Nae Nae)’ on Alexa and eating sugar and E numbers…

Guess we can all be great at something: but we aren’t great at everything.

Get your ‘Nae Nae on here‘

Reflecting the Mediterranean Flu’es

 

Barcelona at Night

I’ve not blogged in a while! I’ve been ill, so ill, I’m like Mrs McSnottison with a Rudolph red nose, a wheezy chest like the penguin from Toy Story and I am so cold that my skin actually really hurts! So basically I’ve been blowing more ‘Blog Roll’ than typing it.

In my house at the moment is a peace and quiet like no other, apparently, I’m rarely ‘silent’, I have this uncontrollable need to have THE LAST WORD, I have an opinion on everything and when I am not talking I am singing BADLY. Personally I think this is rubbish Shhhhh!

Recoiled in the corner of the sofa sweating like a ‘fat birds fanny’ feeling sorry for myself. ‘I’m Suffering from ‘Woman Flu’ or ‘Mediterranean Flu’es’ as I am calling it, given my recent return from Barcelona. Being ill always offers you too much time to reflect, so I think about my beautiful weekend away, I reflect on my life, and reflect on my reflection starring back at me from the mirror, a tapas too many and a mojhito too far, I fear this reflection will take a little work so I reflect on things that are easier to digest! Like cake… wheres the cake…?

I generally just muddle on regardless of the hot and cold sweats and the swelling sore throat that is trying to stop me from breathing and end my life in an instant! ‘Woman Flu’, is a dreadful debilitating disease, far worse than any ‘Man Flu’ outbreak. This flu which causes seriously ill women to pretend to be well and relentlessly carry on with daily chores and womanly duties, this is the opposite to Man Flu. It’s serious! (hahahahaaa)

So yes! I am quiet! and what a bloody disappointing end to the most amazing, beautiful, cocktail fueled weekend away. Barcelona is quite simply a quirky, vibrant buzzing city where the Mediterranean Coast meets Interurban Capital. This city is veiled in Gaudi’s architectural masterpieces, he was a raw talent influenced by his passions in life, architecture, nature, and religion. You have never seen such majestically outstanding features than those present in his architecture. The ‘‘Sagrada Familia’ is utterly breathtaking, your jaw will drop uncontrollably at the sheer size of this place of worship. Whilst the story is etched with a little sadness as Gaudi knew when he started the project that he would never see his most famous works complete. Barcelona, to this day continue to use the funds collected from tourists visiting this iconic building to complete this monumentous and extraordinary site. Barcelona is equally magical and mystical with its maze-like streets in the Gothic Quarter, the cosmopolitan energy spilling from the city walls, the Tapas, the Sangria, the Estrella, San Miguel, and the Rioja… Need I say any more. If you haven’t been …GO!

My husband and I escaped to Barcelona on a mini jet setting city break for our birthday treat to us both. Mine being mid January when everyone is skint and fat and refusing to spend anymore money until they receive their long awaited pay cheque. Everyone’s also started their New Years resolution which generally involves dieting or to ‘eat clean’ with green foul smelling sludge with added Chai Seeds in an attempt to loose turkey fat that was piled on with gluttony over Christmas. Robs is early February and what do you buy the man who has everything…. A beautiful loving wife, four gorgeous children, a nice house…. so a trip to Barcelona was the outcome!

Ill and reflecting, what I realised apart from how fricking awesome Barcelona is, is that we needed this, we needed to reconnect as husband and wife, laugh, drink and hold hands, and have shag without the fear of waking a child or the sound of Mr Tumble in the background. Its not that we are not connected, because we really are but as parents we spend so much of it absorbed in our children, giving them our very all, that the ‘WE’, the ‘US’, the ‘Mr and Mrs’ that made the little army in the first place, unintentionally become secondary to this loving constitute called marriage. It’s not and shouldn’t be a solitude arrangement! Its a meeting of minds, a solidarity bound together by two rings, love and children. We all too often forget who we are when we become parents, and slip into being someones mum and dad. I totally and utterly love this and I would NEVER change this for all the Rioja in Barcelona. They are my very reason to breath and exist, they, along with my husband make me a much better version of me!

But the reason I hold no resent towards my army, being their mum and devoting my existence to help them fulfill their lives and dreams is because over the recent years I have realised that there are two parts to a marriage and you must never take each other for granted, you must never go to bed with out saying ‘I love you’, you must never sleep on an unfinished argument (even if its pathetic, and your pissed off because of the skids in the toilet …again!), you must respect and parent equally with a united front and most importantly you must remember to be intimate with each other, hold hands, kiss good night and enjoy an ‘occasional’ shag-a-thon!

But you must never loose sight of the spark, its always there, flickering away in the background. Every now and then when emotions are high with anger or passionate with love, its a raging furnace, but equally every now and then it feels a little dimmer than it should be, but it hasn’t gone out, its just like any other flame it just needs a little more oxygen to thrive. My husband and I have have both wronged our marriage in some way over the years so we are not a perfect, but have our wrong doings shaped our future? It did for a while, until we reconnected and remembered why we loved each other in the first place, grasped what was important to us and fought for it, we understood and accepted our failings and most importantly we forgave each other and we know that no one in this life is infallible of making mistakes.

A marriage is no different to anything else you love in life. You have to love it back, be kind, considerate and offer it your time and respect.

So for every marriage out there, don’t ever stop working at it, plan a date-night, or a mini break like we did, hold hands and watch a film, have a cuddle and have a shag! Be Husband and Wife because its just as important as being Mummy and Daddy.